Astronomer believes in reaching for stars

Astronomer believes in reaching for stars
By Trey Garman: Special to The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, November 27, 2009

Nick Kaiser, a 55-year-old astronomer at the University of Hawai'i, has perhaps the most ambitious professional and personal to-do list on the planet.

At work, he is tasked with saving the world by "finding killer asteroids before they find us." As the head of the Pan-STARRS project, "Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System", Kaiser and his team at the UH Institute for Astronomy use innovative technology to discover asteroids and comets that might collide with Earth.

At play, he's raced in every major swim, run, and triathlon held in Hawai'i this year, including the HURT 100K, Maui Marathon, Lavaman Triathlon, Honolulu Triathlon, Honu 70.3, Tinman, MountainMan, Kauai Marathon, Ironman and XTERRA World Championships.

He was one of five from Hawai'i to complete the "double" of finishing the Ironman and XTERRA in successive weeks.

Now Kaiser plans to accomplish another double — the XTERRA Trail Running World Championship half-marathon on Dec. 6, followed a week later by the Honolulu Marathon.

Making this all the more fascinating is that he just started racing five years ago.

"I'm an obsessive type," said Kaiser, a Brit who earned his PhD from Cambridge in 1982. "I realized I was quite good at distance and just wanted to see how far I could take it."

So far he has "taken it" to everyone in his age group, winning numerous awards for being the fastest in some of the toughest races. Kaiser also has a sub 3-hour marathon, posting a 2:58:08 at the London Marathon in 2007.

"We like to tease him that he's still running on fresh legs, and that's how he can do all these things," joked one of his ultra-running friends, Bob McAllaster, from HURT (Hawaiian Ultra Running Team). "Seriously though, he's a pretty incredible guy and it seems like he just doesn't stop."

The adventurous XTERRA trail run at Kualoa Ranch will be Kaiser's 20th race this year, and he's done more than 100 endurance races since he started competing in 2004.

How does he do it?

"I get up really early to run most weekdays. I have a pool right by my office I can jump into at lunch time and I bike (and sleep) on the weekends," Kaiser said. "I'm lucky to have a very supportive family that thinks I'm nuts, and a job that involves a lot of thinking. Long training runs are a good time to concentrate."

Shoppers, take your mark, RUN!

November 20, 2009
Shoppers, take your mark, RUN!

Idiotarod debuts in Asheville

By Lindsay Nash I take5 Correspondent

What's speedy, squeaky, covered in spandex and pushed all over?

The racers Sunday in Asheville's first Idiotarod, a 5K shopping cart race aimed to raise money for a local charity.

The event, something akin to an Alaskan dog sled race, will require costumed teams of five to push or pull a shopping cart through about three miles of obstacles, challenges and community service tasks.

“The most appealing thing is not the costumes — not the spandexed Batmans and Supermans or pilots with their costumed ‘airplane' carts — or all the silliness in general. It's the community involvement,” said race director Richard Handy.

Handy, who moved to the area from New York City, where he first participated in an idiotarod, is using the money garnered from the race to benefit his own charity — the 12 Day Project.

The charity focuses on organizing volunteers to assist with projects across Western North Carolina one weekend a month.

The Idiotarod's instructions are simple enough. Dress in costume. Bring a shovel, a shopping cart, a hammer and $10 in singles. And, oh yeah, don't be afraid to lose a little dignity.

The race will start at 11 a.m. Sunday at 900 Riverside Drive in the tractor-trailer parking area of the Silver-Line Plastics Corp.

The participants will be required to buy groceries — which will later be donated to MANNA FoodBank — help on a construction site, do a little work in a community garden and more.

“My intention is to use the race as community development,” said Handy, 34, of Black Mountain. “It's amazing. You're having the most ridiculous, absurd, hysterical time dressed like complete idiots all while helping the community.”

It was those elements of charity, fun and silliness that attracted Rosman runner and high school teacher Sara Cathey, 50, to the event.

“We were looking for a fun event,” said Cathey, who is running with four other members from her local running group. “We're dressing up in a wrestling theme — masks, capes and things like that.”

The race has created a lot of buzz around town and in other small running groups like Cathey's.

Another team has formed from the Black Mountain Runners, a group that gets together and runs a couple of times a week.

“We're just going to have a lot of fun,” said Jen Marsh, of the Black Mountain group who named the team Super Turbolicious Divas, or “STDS,” and plan on wearing lots of spandex, capes and knee-high socks.

Lindsay Nash writes about entertainment for take5. E-mail lindsaynash@yahoo.com.


Additional Facts
IF YOU GO

What: The Idiotarod, a 5K shopping cart race.

When: 11 a.m. Sunday.

Where: Riverside Drive, Asheville.

How much: $20 per person, or $100 per team of five.

The after-party: Wedge Brewing Co., featuring Zach Blew and Levi Douglas performing live. Feel free to shake your spandex, dress, fish costume, toga or whatever the heck else you might be wearing.

Information: ashevilleidiotarod@gmail.com.

On the Net: http://www.ashevilleidiotarod.com/.

Chariots of wire

Asheville Idiotarod pits shopping carts, costumes and trickery, all in the name of fun
by Alli Marshall in Vol. 16 / Iss. 17 on 11/18/2009

There are athelete-punishing marathons, feats of spandexed agility and moments of community-bolstering brilliance. And then there's the Idiotarod, which is kindof none of the above and, then again, kindof all of the above.

Serious runners booty: Costumed racers know that the Idiotarod is more about the fun than the run. Photo by Nicholas Noyes.
"It's basically organized chaos and you're laughing for an entire hour and a half," says Richard Handy, who is putting together the Asheville Idiotarod, the first local version of the 5K shopping-cart race.

Handy, who lived in New York City for seven years prior to moving to Asheville last year, has competed in the N.Y.Idiotarod. "It's a staple thing up there," he says. Based vaguely on the extreme sport Iditarod — the annual 1,150 mile sled dog race across Alaska — the Idiotarod trades sleds for grocery carts and physical fitness for goofy costumes and sabatoguing pranks. Says Web site http://www.ashevilleidiotarod.com: "The Idiotarod is essentially the same thing [as the Iditarod], except we'll cover like a 5K and instead of dogs we use people (idiots) and instead of sleds, we use shopping carts (super pods of wonder), which are extremely efficient, by the way. So essentially it's the same, but according to my mom it's way cooler — and my mom knows."

And now Asheville take its place among a dozen or so other Idiotarod locales. "2007 was the last one I was in in New York.," Handy says. "The cops were always trying to figure out what was going on, so the organizers would switch the location at the last minute. There was an unorganized start; you had to find your own route so people were on every street just trying to get to the finish line."

In costumes. In teams of five. Pushing a shopping cart decorated to look like anything from a trailer to a cow. And then there were the saboteurs: "Everyone was shooting everything from shaving cream to water balloons to super-soakers," Handy remembers.

Unlike the N.Y. race, the Asheville Idiotarod has the City's stamp of approval. That's not meant to detract from the event's unorthodox leanings. "Acceptable trickery," according to the rules list, includes "Sending over a team of supermodels, male or female, to distract [competitors] from their allowable start time." Another example? "The team in D.C. one year set up a fake road block claiming to be officials, and would not let teams go until they had sung a Britney Spears song on the street." Being on the up-and-up is intended to further the good works resulting from all the hijinx. The Asheville Idiotarod was envisioned by Handy as a means to help his other passion: Nonprofit advancement.

Proceeds from the race benefit the newly-forming 12 Day Project (also masterminded by Handy), which structures and promotes community and nonprofit volunteerism. The volunteer projects take place one weekend each month. Volunteers donate six hours of their time for which they receive a discount benefit card that can be used at local businesses.

"Of all the places in the country, this seems like a place that could benefit from something like that," Handy says of the program. "A lot of people here like to support local businesses. This encourages ownership in community." Along with the volunteerism and buying local aspects, the 12 Day Project will also include a barter and freecycle (a network where people can get rid of or acquire cast off items for free) programs.

Though Handy could have aligned himself with a preexisting charitable organization, he chose to create the 12 Day Project because he "felt like there was a simpler way to do [all of this] while benefitting local businesses at the same time."

What isn't simple is racing a decorated grocery cart along Asheville's Riverside Drive. To make sure the race is no easy feat, challenges have been added which team members must complete before crossing the finish line. These tasks include acquiring items for a MANNA Food Bank grocery list en route and assisting with the mulching of a community garden (hint: be prepared with a team shovel). Awards include The Hoff (to the team that displays the most awesomeness), The Chuck Norris (to the team that kicks ass) and The Zoolander (to the really, really, really ridiculously good-looking cart). But the race finishing, challenge completing and prize winning aren't all: There's an after-party at The Wedge Brewery with live music by Levi Douglas and Zach Blew. As the Asheville Idiotarod Web site puts it, "Feel free to shake your spandex, dress, fish costume, toga or whatever the heck else you might be wearing."

who: The Asheville Idiotarod
what: 5K shopping cart race to benefit The 12 Day Project
where: Riverside Drive; After-party at The Wedge Brewery
when: Sunday, Nov. 22 (11 a.m., $100 per team entry fee. http://www.ashevilleidiotarod.com)